Wiki yes it is wrong however.

11 posts / 0 new

Mon, 2010-07-19 01:00

thorin_bane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre

This has a slant as they pretty much call her a liar.

I also saw an interview with Grace Park from Battlestar Galactica where she refutes the claim she can speak 4 other lanuguages as reported.

I have a problem with "the masters of reality" that wiki has become. While they attempt to do fact checking, no one know unless they are notified. Nor does it bring into instance of who did the fact checking. Revision of history both past and living is certainly a problem.

So what else have I misquoted and or been misinformed on by using wiki?

Fifth Estate had that 9/11 truth episode on this morning. Interesting the architech states on his reputation that those buuilding could not have fallen from fire as stated in the report.

Mon, 2010-07-19 09:56

No Yards

When you read something on wikipedia, you need to check the sources in the links and then verify that the sources are reasonably accurate by checking other resources.

Wikipedia is a place where you can START researching the subject of interest ... not a place for definitive facts. I would think the very nature of wikipedia would make that abundantly obvious?

Mon, 2010-07-19 10:36

Yiwah

It's an encyclopedia. You should never approach it as a primary source.

That being said, the ability of anyone to contribute has allowed experts in the field to create, review and modify certain entries, creating world-class summaries. It has also allowed for the proliferation of pop-culture minutiae never before seen... the quality varies for stunning to awful.

This should not still be coming as a surprise to anyone.

Mon, 2010-07-19 11:20

Catchfire

I remember when I volunteered for CKUT in Montreal hearing an interview where the artist was asked what it was like working with such-and-such famous producer. The artist responded: "I have never worked with that producer, nor have I ever said I worked with that producer. Why does everyone keep asking me what it was like?"

The answer was that someone had wrote it on their allmusic.com page (a pre-wiki resource, although still around) and that's where college disc flingers go for their "research."

Of course, if you find a flaw in the wiki page, you can fix it, source it and explain why. You can't do that with allmusic.

Mon, 2010-07-19 21:53

thorin_bane

I do know that Wiki is not 100% but come on some of the things are out to lunch. For no known reason either. Why would someone say someone else speaks 4 languages? Besides I don't have time to look up 17 links deep to find out how accurate a report is. I guess I am just wishing it was better is all.

I find it hard just to find any information these days. So many sites want a fee or don't provide information, the other half are commercial sites looking for a quick buck. The interent is far froma clearhouse of knowledge. More like a publishers clearing house than a knowledge base.

Mon, 2010-07-19 21:57

Tommy_Paine

I use wiki mostly as a memory jogger.

Tue, 2010-07-20 00:25

mahmud

Sometimes Wiki should be taken with a ton of salt .. to help one barf !!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarek_Fatah

Anyone who had ever encountered this miscreant better check if he/she is mentioned in this diary !!

Tue, 2010-07-20 09:19

Yiwah

Just because you don't like that someone is discussed in Wikipedia, does not mean that somehow everything written about that person is lies.

I find that a lot of the articles on people tend to be fairly balanced. Fawning praise is marked and a clean up is asked for. Virulent attacks are addressed in much the same manner. The idea of an encyclopedia is to provide information, not approve one bias over another.

I have seen gross factual errors in some articles, and then have seen them corrected. Other articles languish in sem-accuracy. This is no different from a print encyclopedia. At least you don't have the uncorrected articles taking up space on your bookshelf.

I ask, what is is that people want from Wikipedia? Have you considered that your expectations are unrealistic, and perhaps not actually suited to an encyclopedia?

Tue, 2010-07-20 10:31

Lachine Scot

The thing that I find frustrating is that the natural "corrective" aspects of wikipedia editors can also work against the qualities of articles.

For example, articles about territories that are in dispute between countries--say, Macedonia--are constantly the victim of nationalist edit wars and the result generally reflects whichever side is more aggressive, not what historians or political scientists or even sane people would say.

As well, there is a problem where laypeople reproduce misinformation, as you said about allmusic.com. If a single bestselling book mentions an issue and gets some of the facts wrong, there are often 10 times more people wanting to change the article to reflect that mistake while reading it, whereas someone well-acquainted with the topic can only throw up their hands in frustration at having to constantly justify themselves correcting this oft-repeated mistake.

I don't want to seem that I'm down on wikipedia, I'm actually a pretty huge fan of it. i've written a number of articles, mostly short ones, and once in a while edited long ones that are either copy-and-pasted too much, or written by someone whose english is not great, etc.

For people thinking that they don't have time to edit stuff on wikipedia, it really isn't something that involves a lot of comittment or backup research. It just takes a different sort of participatory mindset than the passive way most of us read articles online.

You can actually edit something and just cite a single source, or none at all, although looking up a couple would certainly make it more likely that you are doing something positive. It really also doesn't take that long to create a basic article about something. I wrote this one in a café a few weeks ago while waiting for someone to finish volunteering :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Beregovski

All I did was read another online encyclopedia article about him--in this case, the YIVO encyclopedia--and establish a basic timeline of his life an main achievements. Then, I went on google books and ebrary and typed in his name to see what had been said about him in some journals and books. From there, I put in some more info about what people think of him, who some of his contemporaries were, what the context of his life was a bit more, etc., and trimmed the article down to a level of stuff that would be relevant for wikipedia.

Give it a try sometime, it's rewarding to see something you created so easily become something more :)

Tue, 2010-07-20 11:19

#10

Catchfire

Great post, Scot. Very informative. Thanks!

There is definitely a dedicated and inspired community behind wikipedia, who are very proud of their work and take it very seriously. However, like you say, there does tend to be a homogenization of information of sorts--in a very different way than the imperialist Encyclopedia Britannica of old.

Tue, 2010-07-20 11:37

#11

6079_Smith_W

Also, there is often a difference in the detail and accuracy when it comes to things in the non-English-speaking world when you compare the English and non-English wikipedia sites.

(edit)

But I agree with the posters above on the notion that if you notice an error or slant it is up to you to change it.